I tackle the issue of under-representation of women in legislative body in Japan. In spite of its stand in economy, Japan lags behind other western democracies in the women’s representation. Scholars have argued structural, cultural and political opportunity explanations for the women’s under-representation. However, these theoretical explanations take women’s political efficacy for granted and fail to explain why and how women become politically efficacious in the first place. This step has to be examined since even though the structural, cultural or political barriers are removed, women will not entertain the idea of running for office if they are not politically efficacious. I argue for the importance of non-profit organizations (NPOs) in raising political efficacy of the Japanese women since they are currently active participants in these organizations. This, in turn, can translate into the consideration to run for office by the female members.
Contrary to a popular scholarly claim that civil society organizational participation raises political efficacy of the members, and the members become politically active outside the organizations, I hypothesize that the effect on the members’ political efficacy depends on the NPO-Government relationship. Focusing on female members, I specifically hypothesize that NPOs which provide their members with opportunities to have face-to-face interaction with government officials through organizational activities are more likely to raise their political efficacy and act as a bridge between civil society and electoral political sphere than NPOs that do not provide such opportunities. This is critical since the NPO-Government relationship has transformed in Japan since the late 1990s. I test the hypothesis using the Japan General Social Survey of 2003 and conducted semi-structured interviews with 62 women from 41 NPOs in Osaka to shed light on mechanism in which women become political efficacious in the organizations.